~\\Altsimma Voce//~

Tuesday, January 31, 2006

...And Again

Coincidence.

He sits, watching, as the ghosts of the past rattle and roll, drawn up from some unknown, unmarked grave, wafting through the graveyards in between, all the cities, all the countries, that he passed through on that timeless endeavour. But for his spectral passage, his undetectable, subterranean travails, they perhaps elevated themselves to a higher plane; for only a tactful manipulation of fate could have created this ironical joke.

"Dear Old Friend!"

The words hit him, cutting him clean and piercing his heart through the middle, as a nobleman's scathing rapier. They leave him gasping, coughing, both flowing away with the surge of the tide and yet drying out in the calming ebb. So the legends, perhaps, are true, that the dead do not suffer the living to pass.

"Imagine finding you here!"

Some resplendent time long ago, those ghosts lived, he tells himself. When the world was still black, white, and every other magnificent color in between, when a twirl of life's kaleidoscope still brought with it magical new patterns, glittering with impeccable and undeniable splendour. Before the jaded panorama turned a misty red monochrome, and pain and blood flooded out his world of friends.

"You don't mind if I join you, do you?"

But of course he minds. But that ancient memory sits down all the same, drunk perhaps on a freshly brewed cup of pleasant nostalgia. He stays silent as the other man welcomes him with open arms. He cues the customary short discussion on how chance plays it's (dastardly) hand, and he hears laughter. But even though it emanates from his own mouth, it seems a disjointed orifice, an unholy oracle, belting out pagan rites to stir the masses into an orgasmic frenzy. Yet another part of him stands watching by the wayside, observing three mad fools- or was it three wise sages? Whichever it is, they are engaged in a shallow yet all-encompassing discourse. And that part of him spectates, amused.

"How long has it been? Ten years?"

Give or Take, he thinks at first - then he recalls that there was no giving then, no generosities, no pity, no soporific stupors of goodwill and pleasantry, but only a long, long road out of his town, away from home, away from his relatives, away from his family. The long, thin yet indomitable scar of exile trailed and blazed his cold, dead path. No, cold, dead, and silent path, on which petrified memories bung thier drunken, grotesque forms to gnaw at his heartstrings and sap the strength from his bones.

"My, how different you look from the last time I saw you!"

In that silence he learnt. Of how tiny and pitiful a single cry resonates, how it is smothered by the wind through the trees, the wolves on patrol, the torrents rushing by and roaring out their infernal cacophonies. And how, in the dark and silent places, one yearns for the rain to spatter noisily on the ground, or for puddles to form so that one can jump in them, all to break the terrible, aching, trapping monotony of endless footfalls. And how, ultimately, one is reduced to banal primalities, how the gossamer shrouds of culture and humanity burn and fade into nothingness so easily.

"...So what do you do for a living now?"

He sees in that old demon, the pleasant things of the past, a time where he still counted merriment as someone he shared a bond with. Yet somehow he wishes he could return. To exit this maze of ceaseless convolutions and agonizing tapestries, and return to the start, or to the end, either way to hold some finality dear, to replace a lacklustre pace and a enervating trudge with deathly peace. To stop running, running, running. Oh! The sweetness of that memory. And it threatens him, overwhelms him, sucks him under in a subtle whirlpool.

"Oh, were we properly introduced?"

Damien Silver. And... what was this spectre's moniker, again? As he scurries, within a split second, to uncover this burgeoning yet shrinking mystery, he plunges through ten years' worth of... what is it? He cannot call it heaven, far from it, for the only gold there is the heavy clinkle and chink of coins, drenched in the black of sinful deeds and painted with the insignia of pain. And the only angelic voices are those of little children, laughing and gleefully prancing as he tosses them a gleaming coin, a rich man's poor restitution for his deeds. But it is not hell, for he has seen that lying at the end of a black, grimy alley, in the ghettoes and shanty towns all along the way, the hopeless, yearning look burnt crimson into the eyes of the fallen. But he recalls the name, and suddenly, he flies up, through all the years, and they fall away, like a cleansing fire. But still the choice lies before him.

"..why don't you go back? People miss you, you know?"

A Blank Stare. At what is either an enormous falsehood, or a terrible, terrible truth. That they might miss his shadowy presence after that heinous deed? That they could forgive was plausible. That they could forgive him, that was a different story.

But would he really want to go back? To face the old ways, the ancient music, to integrate back into them that spat him out so furiously before? And even then, with his new ways, would they not spit him out again, and even more vehemently, even more destitutely?

So again, he stares at the two men before him. One whom he has to deal with, another whom he must deal with. He feels the cold steel pulsing against his thigh, the smooth metallic sheen creeping its way back over his heart. And he counts. One, two, three. Past, present, future. Birth, life,

Death.

So if in some ethereal supposition you could swim the metaphysical, you might have seen the raw, furious gap fill, the steely liquid adamant forming a smooth, impervious lake, at once both a damning, gaping chasm and a unshakeable, indomitable bridge. The chasm of an unthinkable choice, and the bridge of dictatorial, imperious judgement.

And he rises, subtly, impeccably, an air of grace and silence; they hear not the rummaging, the click of the trigger, but only the fiery roar that eviscerates, smothering them in a smoking, acrid cavalcade.

Twice.

Desideras Diabolum 10:00 AM!

***

Thursday, October 06, 2005

Burnout

He was right this time. They were all right this time, and they felt their righteousness suffuse their bones... with a searching, despairing cry, to be wrong. A cry for the heavens to revive the sun-baked land that lay cracked and broken at their feet, for some cleansing shower to meld the shattered pieces and the swirling eddies of dust that moaned of slow, painful torture.

The earth was groaning. Under the weight of man's travesty she ached, as his imperious hand stretched out, rapacious, unceasing, and tore down the final vestiges of her original beauty. Long did they pummel her, drilling, burning, making, destroying, and she cowered meekly in the face of their onslaughts, terrified, defenceless. Long was her torment at their sadistic hands, and she groaned at every new shock, every new method, until her voice was hoarse; and when she could cry out no more she sobbed in silence, tears running across her tarnished and bleak face, until every tear turned black, from the grime that it washed out.

And when she could no longer cry, she coughed. Violent coughs, indeed, laden with some vengeful fury, loaded with the remaining fires that still smouldered inside her. But they took notice, and they shut her mouth, stopping every crack, till even her breath turned foul and odorous, and she turned pale and sickly from her own fumes. She shook in fury, and in pity, and in helplessness, calling out to be renewed, but no one answered. No merciful God to come to her aid, no pleasant, easy method to pass from existence, but only a shivering, cold laugh and still the unceasing torment of their drills, hammering and pounding away, silencing her with their incessant and untamable noise.

So when she could no longer breathe, she died. But they did not feel her passing, even less mourn it, stopping only to renew their efforts, stronger and more extensive, more damaging, more violating. But they realized her death, only when the frosts came, then the wind slowed, and inches by inches, everything they knew came to a slow, tedious, grinding halt.

But the destruction did not stop there. Since they could no longer destroy the earth, they chose to attack each other. Armies raged across landscapes brighter than the sun, unshielded and armed with only a fearsome madness to destroy each other or be destroyed themselves - a potent, and successful method of suicide.

So now it came to pass that only small bands, little pockets of savages remained here and there, clinging on to the last vestiges of technology and civilization. Of all these, he was one of them. One of the remnants that had managed to survive the initial onslaught, and were now clinging to life, dearly and ever so desperately.

Day to day they struggled, tilling the ground endlessly for whatever meagre, tough plants it could still support, building radiation shelters to shield against the weekly death-tainted snows, and leaving the sick and wounded to rot in the cold, merciless open. Civilisation was reduced to simple survival instincts - fight or flight, kill or be killed. There was no other option, no quarter to be given - for none were possessed of any in the first place.

Yet he was the leader of them. A leader amidst distress, risen to power through bloodshed and fear. They knew his name through all the surrounding niches and hollows - though we do not, for he is forgotten. All that is remembered is his final act.

On that day he had gathered the little remnant that he commanded, and showed them a little treasure trove which he had discovered. A cache of weapons, explosives, and food, left behind in a little concealed niche, before the fabled coming of the light.

They marveled, and they wondered, at every precious gem and massive treasure that the chest yielded, savoring, weighing each piece, long-dead imaginations now furious with the thoughts and visions of conquest. Yet at the bottom of the box, was a single piece of paper, with a few words scrawled loosely, in musty brown letters that seemed to be written in dried blood.

"To live is death."

With that, the leader chuckled maniacally, and detonated the hidden explosives at the bottom of the box. In a single instant, their shelter shattered into a thousand pieces, and each member of the tribe was thrown by the massive impact.

None survived, of course, except for the leader, in a cruel ironical twist. Yet as he crawled away from the blast, wounds leaking profusely, he was convinced of his own impending death.

But it was not to be so. Cold he lay in the snow, the deadly, burning snow, that left indelible stains on the flesh, and he closed his eyes even as he felt a cool wave wash over him. And he waited for death to come.

And death did come. When he opened his eyes, he saw a giant black wolf, disfigured and mutated, licking at his feet savagely. He moved his feet to prod it away, but felt completely numb - the cold had cramped up his muscles, leaving him in intense, wrenching, pain, yet in a helpless state. And as the wolf licked his bleeding wounds, they clotted, the clotting agent in its saliva a product of mutations from the burning snow. And suddenly he realized that his nerves felt more sensitive than ever, that the slightest touch of the wind was causing him pain. His skin, raw and dry from the cold, had slowly begun to peel away, leaving the nerves below exposed, uncovered.

Imagine his pain, then, as the wolf, convinced of his immobility, slowly began to devour him. Every nerve in his body screamed against the violation of the flesh, every muscle contracted and cramped up, but he remained motionless, frozen stiff by the cold. And the wolf took its time, lengthening the pain, making it every single bit more excruciating. Finally, it had its fill, and plodded slowly away.

Death would surely come now, he thought. But the powerful coagulant in the wolf's saliva had had it's effect, and he remained alive, conscious, even the bones of his leg cracked and shatted in the frost, exposed to the elements now that all the muscle was gone from them. So he lay there for a day, silently wishing for death.

But another tribe found him, and fed him back to health. They learned his story, and now he sits in a corner of the tribe's shelter all day long, incapacitated. And every day, he tells them that to live is death, and to die is gain.

But they look at him, and they can only laugh.

Desideras Diabolum 4:49 PM!

***

Wednesday, September 14, 2005

Chronicle

I feel the searing fire envelop the core of my heart, and all at once, I am born.

Infernal cacophonies surround my first waking moments, the sibilance of vehement steel snakes, the roar of burnished silver lions claiming their molten birthrights. But I am so small, so tiny, a little insect amongst the gargantuan terrors of this sweltering jungle. So small, yet not fragile; my polished shell gleams, if only faintly, with the pride of nature's force, ready to repel the vicissitudes of the years to come. I am ready, ready to make my small yet indelible mark in the battles raging outside.

Then I feel the cool air, my first taste of life's little pleasantries. The crisp breeze whistles over my shining skin, cooling the fire of bristling within, soothing the bitter, seething charge lurking maliciously within. I see the glimmer of the world around - yet not as others see, with the venereal gleam of their eyes, but as the mirrored reflection on my lustre skin, a bronze-silver distortion of the panorama of hue flitting through the grassy eaves beside. Yet this moment is but an ephemera, a single glimpse, through a speeding train, at the pale, unearthly beauty of a lady standing on the fleeing paltform. And all at once, I find myself marched into rank and file, packed into a vast, stretching regiment, and the air smells, of the slow, acrid bite of rust, of the powdery, choking smell of aged plastic, crumbling and disintegrating with the wear and tear of careless handling. But I stay strong, and we huddle together, languoring in the lasting throes of depression. Time seems to stretch on and on, lke a tedious, slow waltz through the endless ages of the earth...

I awake to a loud clatter. Shouts, orders, the clomp-clomp-clomp of heavy boots crunching the hard gravel underneath. Instinctively, I know it is time.

Clack, clack, clack. With galloping precision, I join my brothers in another situation, in a greasy, oiled, smooth-sailing room, pitch black yet comforting in its ambience. I smell the burning charges, the lustful desires under the steeled masks of my brethren, and the choler boils in my blood, bringing forth the grudges of brass, the sharp, deathly malice that bespeaks all of my short-lived race.

Clatter, clatter, rattle, rattle.

From the stifling silence to this fervent clamor, from the stiffening placidity to this raging altercation, we forget the long, dastardly gnawing of time - for as we know naught of it, nor do we feel it - and lose ourselves in the rising ululation of war, from the vicious struggle resonating through these jagged walls, from the goring, disemboweling screams of damning blasts throwing their unavoidable shocks. Yes, we were born for this - for the glory of the fight, for the fires of this unending exchange...

Then a sharp shock, and we clatter, angrily, to the floor. We hear the familiar moaning, the discordant screams of man's dying moments. But this time, they carry not the added fury, the mounting excitement, but a sinking, quenching feeling, a plunge in icy waters of disappointment at the last moment, even as the invigorating race of battle comes abruptly to a close. We reach out for that final goal, but our fingers brush only chill, laughing air, and we sink perdurably, under the long ravages of the icy death...

Is this to be it? No blaze of glory, no light at the end of the tunnel, no final flourish before the withering, simple, slow rotting of our bodies by the maw of the earth... And no mausoleum, or monument for our passing, only the pallbearers of the earth and the sepulcher of the worms...

Not this, God, not this.

We lie there, cursing our fate. The odes of battle grow silent and we fade, unfulfilled, obscure, unnoticed. But we wait, brooding our fate.

Have you ever felt that terrible feeling? Of certainty of your fate, of knowledge of your doom, yet ever hoping against hope, ever fighting the inevitable in your mind, knowing that disappointment lies at the end of that long-drawn tussle in your head? But that was how we felt, and tthe tomes of history began to resound in cynical laughter, at those crippled into inaction by the luck of the draw. And then, we waited, muted against the burgeoning silence...

Click. Sssh. The slow grind of sand and mud scratching across the walls, like nails on a blackboard, awakens us from our somnolent stupor. The light shines on us again for a brief moment - before we feel the slick darkness of greased chambers, of well-oiled gears, locking us back to our rightful place.

But before we can savour the return, it begins. Our missions, each of them winding their way around the finalities of this ceremony. With an animated vigour, each of us springs up to the task, filing out the final door with the lucid trepidation of our first tentative flight, and with the settling, conclusive finality that it will be our last.

Finally, it is my turn. I step up, and immediately I am hurtling forth, disembodied, disemboweled, the fires of my entrails spattering the long, spiralling grooves that I touch gently, even as I feel time slow down on my final rite of passage. The ominous tunnel rushes past, for the first and the last time, as I emerge in a magnificent flourish of golden flashes and silvery smoke. I feel the air, no longer cool and crisp like it was so long ago, but heavy with the scent of death, thick with the humidity of blood and guts, fresh and putrefied, mixed together in a savage bloodlust.

I cleave through the rancid air, spinning and boring a tunnel, a tunnel of oiled, metallic air, smouldering and simpering in my wake. I am lucky, so lucky, for I glimpse my target coming straight along, walking to his imminent doom.

I twist and snake, and I feel the soft, pink barrier ease apart at my presence. Even the warm, white concrete in front shudders and shatters at my severing fury. Then the soft, gray folds envelop me, and I catch them in my spiralling grasp, pulling them along in a tornado of malice. No cushion hinders my steps, no barrier severs my path, this temporal path of darkness that all tread on the final inroads to the afterlife. So I leave, this time smashing the white concrete asunder as my mission slows to its final denouement.

Ah, a tree. So here it ends. I shudder as the bone-crunching force crumples my remaning body, whilst all around, the red-flecked tornado splatters itself in a cadaveric flourish.

I close my eyes amidst the remains of the man's brain, and I ease into my long, silent, eternal slumber. My work is done.

I am death, the destroyer of worlds. Of each little obstacle that foolishly blunders into my maleficient path, I rend apart with brutal splendor.

I am the perpetual symbol of war, my steely point the apex of the triumph of violence over peace, of man's raging malice against the peaceable statutes of God.

I am the bullet.

Feel the force of my impact.

Desideras Diabolum 11:09 PM!

***

Sunday, September 11, 2005

Speed

[inspired by Frank Mueller's Sin City and some personal inspiration]

Click.

With a soft, smooth motion, the blinds slid open, bathing the room in a flood of lucent, milky moonlight. As the silvery beams wound their way around the long, lissome trails of smoke that were wafting slowly from the ashtray on the table, they gently illuminated the small, Spartan trappings of that inimitable crevice, that crevice that at once was simply another number in the another floor of dilapidated apartments in this old, decrepit part of the city, and yet stood out amongst the rest, for the unnatural vigour that burned within, not from the ephemeral splendour of new things, that melded and faded into the background of dust and grime that enveloped this ghetto, but from the lithe energy, the refulgent fires of passion that seared deeper and stronger even in the resplendent glories of the celestial spirits.

And this was no ordinary slow drawn, tempered flame that brought a soothing warmth to those gathered around its hearth, as if listening to some grand, ancient tale told from the memories of ancient patriarchs, but a truculent, roaring inferno that brought it's damning immolation to all those caught in the rage of its' demolition. The inferno of a whirlwind romance, of long, carefree years of intimacy and gentle, meandering streams of emotion compacted and crushed into two weeks of intense, unimpeded savagery, of cascading, speeding rapids along this whitewater deluge. Yes, even though the room boasted only a few bare cupboards, a small coffee table, and a few velvet armchairs, they boasted of a mellifluous, sanguine strength, that stood out in defiant pride against the long gossamer curtains of dust and age. Yet the real core of the room, the core that emanated deep resounding waves of ineluctable heat, was the large king-sized bed sitting at the side of the window. Even now, the pale, coruscating moonlight was falling across the crumpled sheets, gingerly embracing the slender, sylph-like figure resting furtively there - a woman, lanky yet elegant, prim yet tempting.

Her eyes, though closed, seemed to stretch into infinity, a bottomless well of a maelstrom of emotion, a monument to the malice of betrayal, a shield against the wiles of the world, yet also a innocent hope, a chink in the armour, a slit in the visor, with which she saw the vicissitudes of her life, a duality of caution and trust, of defence and vulnerability, of her steel façade and the soft, supple skin beneath. Her face was beautiful – yet not only in the platitudes of beauty which the world looked for, but in the seamless care, the bristling sensitivity, that her countenance exuded, inexorably. Her fair skin, pale yet suffused with the deep red of her noble blood, shone with an unearthly glow, angelic and lyrical, weaving a melodious tapestry from her head to her feet, juxtaposed against her silky, ebony black hair that cascaded across her tender shoulders, hiding her long, fragile neck. Her body boasted of youth – of unceasing strength, of burning alacrity, the brash temerity of lascivious curves and undying stamina tearing away the gormless monstrosities of age and weariness. Yet now she was as a dormant volcano, her breath coming slowly, forming small clouds of mist in the frosty, chilly air, a nymph gone to rest in the boughs and branches of her giant tree.

As the clouds gently shifted, nudged along by the dulcet songs of the wind, the moon shone even brighter, dazzling the grimy black district under the cleansing ablution of its’ white curtain. Now, as the emboldened rays surged through the blinds, they slowly, faintly outlined the brooding, masculine figure sitting on a bare armchair in the furthest corner of the room. He took a long drawl from his glowing cigarette, exhaling a slow acrid cloud of burnt tobacco mingled with the slight, sharp tang of his mouth. He pauses, and then takes a deep swig from the bottle of whisky on the table. As the fiery liquor rushes down his throat, he shivers imperceptibly from the renewed euphoria, the rush of blood through his rippling, muscular body burnishing his strength and glossing his sanguine eyes with a brazen, unabashed light.

***

Ahh. Nothing like a swig of Walker to keep you going.

I placed the good ol’ Johnny back on the table as I reached for my coat. Those PETA people would be up in arms if they saw it, bearskin and all – ah but those newfangled American nutcases would never set foot on the doorstep of this seedy backwater after all. Those movie stars especially – advocating humanitarian aid, speaking out for charities, making all those facetious, compassionate overtures, all the while staying in their million dollar penthouses, their enormous, sprawling mansions, with servants at their beck and call, yet still complaining about their unceasing woes with the paparazzi and falling out with magazines over improper photos while the people that their so-called charities support languish in the throes of deathly hunger. Selfish, stuck-up hypocrites, the whole bunch of them. I’d like them try to live in this remote, far flung corner of Germany, where you could get shot by walking fifty feet down any one of these musty streets – they wouldn’t last a day.

“Boris…”

A soft, barely audible moan comes from the figure on the bed, and I give a start.

Ahh. Catrina Svarensky, my lioness.

Beautiful, beautiful – was it only two weeks ago that I met her for the first, proper time? Come to think of it, I had glimpsed her fleeting beauty in the side lanes of these murky streets, and had always wondered how she could survive on her own in this sordid, lustful hell, with criminals lurking on every corner – but then again, she had always mystified me, with her wild, adventurous spirit, and the silken lilt in her voice that told of undying trust, of immeasurable loyalty. With her by my side, I never failed to see the silver lining in every cloud, the gold doubloons at the bottom of each infinite ocean of sorrow.

And sometimes I wondered, how lucky could I be? A grim, devilish stroke of fate had led me to this dirty, crime-filled part of the city, and yet now it seemed that I could even walk through the streets forever at night, with her in my arms and my gun in my coat. She was a class act – she trusted me, and stood by my side, never mind that she was already attached to someone else. Someone special no doubt – the lucky bastard. But while she was here, I took content to simply gaze, silently with unspeakable eyes, at her sylvan figure, her smooth hands, her blood-red nails…

The claws of the lioness.

I give a soft hiss at the thought. Somehow on cue, the scars of last night begin to itch, a constant, nagging reminder of her, of where she had drew blood with her long, sharp claws that flared in the heat of passion, raking their violent trails across my battered, flaky skin, the ploughs tilling the grounds of passion for the newborn seeds of fulfilment. Even now, the long, red marks began to throb, leaving a lingering thirst in my mouth, a thirst for her unbridled punishment.

I looked at the clock. Midnight.

It’s time to go.

***

He rises slowly and deliberately, making little noise. But she hears him, and stretches out in a languid fashion as he walks up and plants a little kiss on her lips. A sibilant whisper edges out from his mouth, a loving command at once firm and unyielding. Yet as he pulls his coat over his shoulders and holsters his .50 AE Desert Eagle, she rises defiant, returning the force of the command.

“I’m coming with you this time.”

He turns, with a hint of exasperation, to underline the gravity of his command. Yet he sees the indurate desire in her gaze, and he falters – as if giving a second thought to his previous words. Sensing his hesitation, she draws her Glock, cocking it as she gives him a knowing gaze, a gaze that bespoke her indomitable spirit, her will to fight, that had sustained her through her years in this despised hellhole.

He opens his mouth as if to speak, but a colonnade of bullets bursting through the wooden door cuts him off in mid-thought.

***

Damn. They found us.

I pull her down behind the bed with me, as a second column of bullets shatters the cheap plywood door into splinters. Cocking my .50 AE, I get up to return the rude greeting when she pulls me down, suddenly.

“Not here. Not now….” She implored, ever so gently yet with the terror of a innocent child facing the mocking, laughing horrors of the night. “My car is downstairs – if we can find a way to it…”

I understood. Quick as lightning, I flashed out, feinting first to the right, and then rocketing through the window. The glass glosses lightly over my skin, leaving thin, silky trails of blood. No matter – it would heal, in time.

The rubbish dump is, of course, just where I predict it will be, and we land, muffled, with a soft thump.

***

They run through the city, silent as the cool midnight breeze, their trench coats flapping wildly in the roaring wind. But this wind is not a cheerful, genteel gust, but rather a rank, acrid, rotting smell, a phlegm-filled cough from the tarred and diseased lungs of this grimy part of the city, that seeks to choke the life out of all who breathe it, slowly and painstakingly, to the very last drop. But they pull their collars higher, and wrap their cloaks tighter, and their pace quickens. Far off, yet drawing closer, the noisy clatter and crunch of boots on broken tarmac sounds out, like a war drum, edging them ever on, sustaining them on through the sewer mists and rodent kingdoms. Finally, after a twisting, snakelike run through the better part of a mile, they reached a small, rickety garage, hidden amongst the clamour and creaking of the larger apartment blocks around it. She enters by a side door, and presses a lever; immediately, the main door creaks to life, revealing a blazing black car sitting eagerly on its haunches, as if waiting to pounce.

***

A Diablo? Here, in this decrepit city? How’d she ever smuggle it in?

“Get in. There’s no time. The guns you need are in the back seat.”

I scramble into the back even as she floors the accelerator. M16s, MP5s, a veritable arsenal awaits me, decked out in random, messy display. But I ask no questions. Better this, than a broken down pickup truck and me with just my dick in my hand. I wind down the side window, and fit my bulletproof helmet on snugly as I begin to take aim.

Roll out the big guns, baby.

***

The roar of gunfire echoes throughout the battered city, shaking it to its foundations. As the rattle of the rifles in their deadly crossfire shatters the long, silent reaches of the night, a little chuckle finds its’ way out of Boris’ mouth. Slowly, the chuckle grows into a chortle, then into a guffaw, then finally into a full-blown, maniacal laugh, as the waves of bullets roar incessantly from his M16, mowing their pursuers down mercilessly. Magazine after magazine clatters to the floor amidst the growing pile of smoky, acrid spent shells, and hail after hail of return fire smashes itself fruitlessly onto the bulletproof glass. All the while, the car snakes through dark alleyways and shadowy lanes, twisting a path of destruction through this little shanty town, its’ great, sleek body straining and squealing at the violence of the twists and turns that it was being put through, a slick black anaconda slithering through this murky lake.

Then they crash through the city barriers, and the highway beckons. The long, broad Autobahn highway, laden with merciless Murcielagos and flashy Ferraris. They speed past, like flitting fireflies out on a warm summer’s day, blinking past without so much as a wave, yet buzzing with the mighty squeal of hard rubber on rough tar. This deserted stretch hangs heavy with the smell of tobacco and alcohol mixed with gasoline – the local speed gangs on a drug-induced speeding spree again, no doubt.

They ease into the highway, and they are off.

***

Finally.

I remove my finger from the trigger and wind up the window. I collapse into the back seat, panting with the euphoria of the slaughter, the scent of the kill still fresh on my bloodstained clothes. Mustering my strength, I clamber back into the front seat, as a look of consternation crosses my darling’s face.

“Oh dear! Are you alright? Are you injured?” The unfathomable depths of concern interlaced into her voice take my pain away, even as my eyes meet hers, in a searching, interrogating gaze. Perhaps I was cruel then, but my eyes belied my smiling countenance in their depths of mistrust and anger. Anger, perhaps, at placing herself so much in danger, and not telling me about it, letting me protect her against the building storm, instead of stumbling through the sheets of torrential rain as we had just done. Mistrust, perhaps, at the wealth of information that was surely to come: why were so many people after her, and why did they see it fit that she should be theirs dead or alive – more dead than alive, it might have seemed, after the colonnade of bullets that had roared from their cannons at every possible opportunity? My childish naiveté had been solemnly severed by the demolition of those last thugs – this was no game, no toying around, as a cat toys with a mouse that it has caught, but a bitter fight to the end, nature red in tooth and claw, as it had been decreed since the thirst descended from that first fruit. Yea, the thirst for fellow blood, the will to inflict pain, had cascaded down tonight, encasing our deep, passionate love in a firestorm of blood.

“I suppose you’ll want to know everything, then.”

But before I can respond with my resounding affirmative, an enormous crash rocks the car from the side. Then another, on the other side, sending the Diablo into a wild spin.

Damn. They caught up.

We swerve the car around, but before we have time to draw our guns, a screaming rocket whistles straight at us, sending us flying in a raging fireball. We clatter, with a bone-crunching smash, on the road a few metres away.

She is sobbing now, even as she extricates her battered and bloodied body from the wreck, and tells me how she never meant for me to get involved, how she thought she could get away on her own, and how she was dreadfully, dreadfully wrong all this time, so foolish, so insensible, and how she was terribly, terribly sorry for everything that had happened…

I roll out of the smouldering wreck, and put a finger to her lips.

“Catrina, just tell me one thing. Honestly.” I say, my voice tinged with caustic cynicism.

“What? Who these people are? How you can get out of this mess? Oh, I – “

“No, Catrina, none of that. I just want to ask – do you love me?”

She sits there, stunned, as if a gladiator had just applied a sledgehammer to her head. She says nothing, nothing at all, but slowly, her eyes fill with that unspeakable look, that wellspring of infinite gratitude, and tears glisten their corners. And all at once, the floodgates open, and her tears stream down, down, down, uncontrollably, a torrential waterfall of sadness and unworthiness slipping and sliding down her porcelain face.

“Oh, Boris, yes, I do love you!” she sobs under her breath, her body shuddering uncontrollably.

With a knowing smile, I draw my Desert Eagle from my trench coat, and her Glock from hers. I look at her, if only for an instant, and she stops crying. Crawling over the ragged, stony floor, we huddle behind the smoking wreck of her Diablo. And we wait.

If we’re going down, we’re going down in a blaze of glory.

The soft thud of suede shoes on this rugged asphalt grows faintly louder and louder. Thump, thump, thump. Like the slow heartbeat of an old man, stubbornly shoving out each pint of blood laboriously, agonizingly, as if the next beat might be the last. Then the footsteps stop, in a haphazard fashion, one after the other, a sign of unsynchronised thugs.

They’re gone.

All at once, we spring the trap. My seven pocket artillery rounds each bore their way into a different thug, feeling their way through their insides and tearing a leaden path through their vitals. Beside me, she is no less accurate, and her twenty 9mm rounds slice apart five, a neat four-piece for each hooded bugger. We duck down and reload, but the element of surprise is no longer on our side. The rest of the thugs open fire, and the dance of death begins.

In this game, there are no winners.

Wave after wave of exchange fly between the remaining thugs and us. We find our marks easily; laughing as each enemy bites the dust, laughing with the euphoria of this drug, the drug of a vainglorious final stand. We laugh away their bullets, our mirth and madness mixed into a indomitable shield of ubiquity, gulping down the pain and spitting it back double. And when, at long last, we kill every last one of them, our hands never stop pumping the triggers, our eyes never tear themselves away from the gun sights, and our feet never falter in their resolute determination to hold fast – until every last bullet is spent, and we sink down, painfully but contentedly, amongst a sea of spent casings strewn about by the force of our destructiveness. With the last whiff of this euphoria, I tear her tattered, blood-soaked rags from her body, and she does the same with mine.

We embrace. Our blood spills generously from our innumerable wounds, and we bathe each other in our own lifeblood. And her blood feels so warm, so comforting, so loving, a tide of cleansing liquid crystal, flowing over my body, healing it, rejuvenating it. We kiss, for the last time; a kiss sweetened by the taste of blood in each other’s mouth, a kiss sweetened by the prospects of a shared journey towards home, wherever home might be now. I feel her tongue gleaning lightly over the roof of my mouth, dancing a slow, romantic waltz with my tongue, and finally, withdraw, slowly and longingly, to the crimson depths of her mouth. As if on cue, I leap forward, and her mouth tastes so sweet, so lovely, melting into a seamless liquid red as I drink her passion, her fire, for the last time. Then we part, and she snuggles up to me, with a soft moan, a moan of pleasure and of pain, a celebration of the final fires of life in the tortures of death.

The bitter, biting breeze outside is so cold, so chilling, and so dark. It whistles, then roars, the laughter of the reaper as he comes for his prize. But she feels so warm in my arms, her glistening, silky body pressed up close against mine, so lively, so passionate, and I hug her tighter, even as she begins to turn pale. And I laugh, I laugh, not with my mouth, bloodless and pale, but with my spirit, at the reaper and his trailing, ebony cloak, and his futile efforts to chill our undying fire.

I close my eyes, and she becomes my fire, my eternal fire.

Ahh, Catrina Svarensky, my lioness.

Desideras Diabolum 7:05 PM!

***

Thursday, September 08, 2005

Tour de Enfer

(N.B. The irreverence in this piece is intended.)

Well greetings! My name is Calisto, and I’m here to guide you through hell. Yep, you heard me, your own personal guide! Ain’t that sweet, you say? Well ol’ Lucifer up – oops, I mean down – there thought that it might be good to give y’all mortals a little pleasantry, a little polite courtesy of sorts, before you get sent off to eternal torment, you know…

Oh don’t give me that look. You mean you thought all them priests were lying? This is a place of eternal torment, no doubt about it? Can’t you just smell that wonderful, aromatic brimstone – pardon the pun – brimming in the air? Ahh, never fails to get you going all the time. Mind you, I’d say “get you going in the morning”, but we don’t have much in the way of time down here – not that watches and clocks get melted by the heat, but rather, time doesn’t count much when you’re going to stay here for eternity, eh? And since we don’t have the sun and moon and whatever other kinds of measurements you all have up there, I guess somewhere along the way Lucifer just thought it wouldn’t be necessary at all!

But back to the point, really. Ah, right, you want to know why you’re here. Hmm, let me get the book of death, then. Book of life, Book of death, gotta have a pair of everything, you know – hmm… says here, you robbed an old lady, took her money, and went to crack some pot. Haha! Oh don’t mind me, I’m just being a little lame today, the numbers seem to be dwindling now that we’ve sent that large bunch swamped in lil’ Katrina off to their spots. Well anyway, really, says here that you also murdered a bunch of people, raped no less than ten 12-year old girls, and got a little naughty with your sister!

GOTCHA! I just love that look on people’s faces when I tell them that, works every last time, it does – but you’re not gonna believe this, you’re here cause you didn’t believe in Jesus!

HAHA! Oh, man, you mortals just crack me up, you’re so ignorant you don’t even know it! Yep! You got it! That’s all you had to do, take him into your heart and what not, but of course, it’s too late now! Damn, I just love that expression on your face; I’d ask to take your picture if cameras still existed down here! Go on, sob and cry all you want, you’ll get tired of it after a nice long eternal fire bath – heh heh heh… Oh and get this – remember that big, evil dictator Mao Zedong? He’s up in heaven! Turns out that sneaky bugger had a bible hidden in his store of “little red books”, that sly old fox! Bet you wondered what was keeping him going through all that fatty pork and chain-smoking, eh? None other than your good ol’ daddy up there. Strange, eh? The way things really are after you shove off that dumb little world up there… Not that I’m complaining, Lucifer’s practically getting a good laugh every ten souls or so – ah well. Time for you to come along!

Oh wait, hold on, there’s someone coming down. Where’s that idiot Bathory when you need her? She’s supposed to take this one – oh hello, it’s Cardinal Alexander! Hey Alex! I see buggering little choirboys from the back finally got the better of you! What happened? Got a heart attack while doing one of them in confessional? Your 65-year old heart can’t take you getting it up? Or did you OD on viagra? You never knew your limits, old perv – guess you didn’t make it to your confessional in time!

What’s that? One of the choirboys did you in with a knife! HILARIOUS! I see he didn’t take too kindly to you shoving one up his butt eh? Haha… guess this old fox finally found a trap he couldn’t slink out of eh?

Oops, sorry master, didn’t realize you were there – what? You’ve come to take the Cardinal away personally? I see… Hey Alex! Consider this a great honour! It’s not often that His Infernal Majesty ascends up from his throne below, he’s got much better things to do than to escort your little pedophilic ass to – Oops sorry master, yes, yes, I’ll get going now…

All right then, so you wanted to know something? Oh, why the priest was there? Well, he’s catholic, you know, it works a little differently for them, kinda like the Jews, you know, they need confessional and some kind of remittance for their sins and all that – the exact details escape me, though, I never was one for spiritual knowledge – I figured since I’m down here, I might as well make good of the things here, and not give two hoots about what newfangled religions spring up there…

Well less talk. Let’s be off.

And for a while, only the soft hiss of malevolent steam under their feet can be heard.

Now don’t be so timid. You don’t get much time for talk later, so ask away! Hmm, you want to know why I don’t have red skin and goat horns and all that? Well, no one ever said we would, or ever wanted to, conform to your limited human notions of hell and demons – after all, we’re all fallen angels here, and so what makes you think we’d ever want to give up our magnificent, ethereal glories and splendid numinous robes? It doesn’t make sense, really, we’re just more vain, more petty, and a lot more evil than our good-natured counterparts above – the evil spirits you hear about, that’s just us in our non-bodily forms. We do have some other non-angelic inhabitants here, but those are on rare occasion –

Oh, here comes one now! Recognize him? No? Hey, Adolf! Off for a tour of the new hell? Watch out, section ten’s not exactly complete yet, think they’re still putting on the finishing touches… Knew you’d get a little tired of the standard fire and brimstone sooner or later. Oh, say hello to this new inhabitant – he’s getting a little look-see before he makes his choice…

Ah, you recognize Mr. Hitler, then! See, Adolf, told you it’d be useful to keep your mustache the way it was – say hello to Josef for me, if you see him! Have fun now!

Was that really Adolf Hitler? Why of course, m’boy! You know, occasionally, ol’ Lucifer gets a little generous, and rewards those people who help put more than their fair share of souls in here – especially Jewish souls, you know, they’re the chosen race after all – so Adolf there got himself a little autonomy, you know? No eternal torment, freedom of movement within hell – but of course, he’s still stuck here, not like us angels who can go to earth for a little havoc by and by – and you’ll never believe it, he became bosom buddies with Stalin down here! Turns out when they no longer were trying to invade and conquer each other’s land, they had pretty much similar interests, you know, world domination, genocide, good food, and of course, the fact that language in hell is standardized meant no more annoying translators having to bridge the gap between them…

Oh, the new hell? The one Adolf was talking about? Well, you mortals still up there don’t know about it’s existence, but it’s been around for, I don’t know, 50-60 human years? Of course that’s really nothing compared to the thousands of years that the rest of hell has been around for, so that’s why we call it the new hell, you know, as opposed to the standard one that everyone tells you about.

It’s been more successful than we originally thought – huge numbers of people first wanted to rush over, so much so that it got overloaded in its early stages – but levels of emotional and physical torment are off the roof in there! Best thing is, it’s a non-reversible decision, so once a person decides to move over, that’s it! No coming back, ever.

You see, people all tell you about fire and brimstone, and what not. Yeah, and I’m sure you’ve heard it many times before. Well the pain and suffering is pretty intense, but the thing is after a long while, say one or two of your human decades, your soul is so numbed by the torment that it can’t ever remember than it was any other way.

And that’s where the problem begins, you see? Once a soul can’t tell between the current state, hell, and how it was before hell, that is when torment wasn’t perpetual, then the force of the difference, the unceasing anguish that froths forth when the souls recalls the time before torment, is lost. The soul just assumes that it has known nothing else but torment for the longest time, and thus, no matter how hot the fire, how pungent the brimstone, or even how many times we impale them on spears and swords, the full power of perpetual torment is lost, reduced to a small shadow of it’s former self. What, I’m guessing, people forgot when they wrote all those manuscripts about hell, is that torment, pain, suffering and all other negative feeling is only magnified properly when juxtaposed with positive feeling, a pang of loss for the evanescent happiness that ambiguously surrounded their former days. So, that’s the problem.

Or rather, was the problem? That’s where the new hell comes in. It’s a huge city, a human city, where each person who enters the city simply assumes his role, the role that he had before he died and took his long descent. Except that each role is laden with inimitable bugbears, with perpetual, yet variegated, irritations and terrors, that make the person unceasingly depressed. Usually, they try to kill themselves – with so-called “knives” and “guns” that they own, of course, but they forget that they can’t die again! So after the initial pain and suffering, the wound simply remains there, constantly bleeding, constantly painful, constantly nagging and laughing at their folly. Each worker has a terrible boss, a malicious wife, delinquent kids, backstabbing colleagues, and yet he can never be fired, he can never divorce his wife, he can never send his kids away to a children’s home. Each day he gets caught in a jam, or his car breaks down, or he gets in an accident, or he gets drunk in some seedy pub and wakes up with a scathing, throbbing hangover - Do you see? The terrible ignominies of mortal life, magnified to an unbearable scale – yet they must bear it, for there is no other way for them – and yet while magnified, ever changing, ever shifting, a swirling poisonous mist that takes many forms, but chokes and kills all the same – this is the real torment, the real hell, a hell on earth, if you may.

Hmm? What’s that you say? You’ll try it over fire and brimstone anyway? Well. It’s your choice! I’ll call Baal – he’s in charge of the new hell – and tell him I’m sending you over.

--

Well, this is where we part ways. Thanks for the amusement anyhow, you’ve been a better laugh than some of the cynical characters I’ve seen of late – so goodbye, and have a utterly hellish day! I’ll be seeing you around – or maybe I won’t.

Oh that’s right, I never did catch your name, what was it again?

Bush? George Bush? Alright then, goodbye, George!

Desideras Diabolum 5:30 PM!

***

Monday, August 29, 2005

Gunpowder Vodka

[used for S'pore polytechnic writing competition]

It was a beautiful night over Berlin. The ethereal night sky was adrift with white, fluffy clouds, weaving their slow mosaic of airy vapours amongst the clear, lucent beams of moonlight. Yes, the moon was out in her full splendour tonight, bedecked with all the numinous glories of her husband’s searing light; sending her pale, gossamer gown swirling and cascading toward the speckles of bright light below. A cool, crisp wind was stirring lightly, ruffling the feathers of the of the pheasants roosting quietly below, and rustling the fallen leaves in gentle whirls and eddies across the stony concrete floor.

Indeed, a beautiful night for destruction, reflected Illyushin Fedorov, even as the rumble and drone of his III-Sturmovik bomber’s twin propeller engines drowned out his thoughts. Even as he lazily gave the control stick a slight tweak, the incessant whine of the air-raid sirens shattered the serene peace below. Residents ran helter-skelter into the waiting underground shelters, as huge megaphones began to bark out orders from every corner of the street. As the mottled lights quickly and silently vanished, anti-air crews began to man their loud, uncouth retorts.

“Eh, Ilya, we are almost there, no? Stop dreaming and start evasive maneuvers!” snapped his co-pilot Pyotr Gregorevich in cold, hard Russian, folding up his navigational map as he lowered his binoculars. Snapping out of his short-lived reverie, Illyushin began to veer away from the trailing V-formation, even as the first puffs of black smoke began to pepper the sky, roaring their choruses of defiance against the silence of the ominous heavenly abode.

So the dance of death began.

A slow, rising ululation began, the soft and deadly whistles of descending judgment. As the five hundred and two hundred pound oblongs rolled out the bellies of the first few bombers, the resounding echoes of other bombs hitting their targets began to deafen the screams of the residents below. Bomb after bomb descended mercilessly, splitting open the heart of the city in wrenching explosions that mangled the streets and tore houses asunder, a torrential cavalcade of one man’s malice against the other, of payback for the millions still lying dead in the hollows of Stalingrad. In response, wave after wave of flak roared desperately from the cannons below, tearing blindly into the clouds to send their deadly reverberations through the solemn skies. Gun after gun lamented their plight to the heavens, hoping for, perhaps, some miraculous answer. Yet their vainglorious defiance was not without reward, as the sickening rip of shrapnel through hardened fabric began to resound in the ears of the pilots. The lords of the sky began to bow to the masters of the land, even as the unceasing exchange of steel-cased words filled the air thick with the acrid, burning smell of gunpowder and phosphorus.

But these birds had a mission, and they would accomplish it or die trying. So even as the long, tortured screams of other aircraft taking their final descent filled the bloodstained night, the remainder of these indurate souls trudged on through this valley of darkest shadow.

Finally, Illyushin found his target – a huge factory complex, one of the epicenters of the German war effort, churning out hundreds of Tiger II tanks every week, to rumble slowly but surely to the rapidly advancing Soviet frontlines, where their huge 88mm cannons would surely wreak havoc amongst the smaller and weaker Soviet armor. Descending gingerly amongst the coruscating black death rising from the cannons below, he and three other bombers reached bombing altitude, and began to release their two thousand and four thousand pound bombs, to smash through the hapless concrete below. Yet the guns were not so inaccurate now, and Illyushin winced, as a flak shell exploded not a hundred metres from his plane, sending one of the three other bombers who had descended with him on a fiery downward spiral of doom.
“Eh, Ilya, the bomb release mechanism is jammed!” shouted Fyodor Devarensky, the bomb technician, over the roar of the cannons.

Illyushin froze. “What?” he yelled.

“I’m serious! The bomb doors are open, but the bombs won’t release!” he called back, his voice a mix of desperation and frustration.

“Well, fix the bloody thing, dam—”

He was cut off as the plane lurched violently, throwing Fyodor on his back and rattling the cockpit vehemently, throwing Illyushin out of his seat. A flak shell had exploded near their rear, ripping two thirds of it off, leaving only a limp, tattered and laughable excuse for a tail, what with two of the fins torn straight off and the third flapping uselessly, the hydraulic lines spouting cold, yellowish liquid.

“Ilya! Fyodor! Are you alright?” called the anxious voice of Pyotr, who had been the first to recover from the devastating shock.

“Yeah, I’m alright, but it looks like we’re going down.” Fyodor answered, gesturing grimly at the mangled tail. Next to Pyotr, Illyushin clambered silently back into his seat, a small trickle of blood oozing slowly from his forehead. He seemed to be in the throes of deep thought.

“Eh, Fyodor, can you program the bomb fuses to go off after thirty seconds?” said Illyushin suddenly.

“Yeah, but why…?” replied Fyodor disconcertingly, casting a searching glance at Illyushin’s inscrutable features. But Illyushin simply took out a small packet of cigarettes from his thick flying jacket, and twisted the control stick powerfully to the left.

“I say, have you heard of the Japanese in the pacific? I hear they do some sort of suicidal tactic known as Kamikaze…” Immediately, a look of epiphany dawned on the faces of Pyotr and Fyodor, as they finally realized what he was getting at.

“Eh, but have a smoke, yeah? American Marlboros – I was saving these up for later, they cost me a pretty penny, a week’s salary, you know, but I figured, if we’re going down—”

“We’re going down in style, eh?” chuckled Fyodor, as he finished tweaking the bomb fuse. Next to Illyushin, Pyotr drew a long, deep breath through his Marlboro, and gave a whistle of admiration.

“Some pretty fine taste you got here, Ilya!” he murmured, barely audible above the din. Then, raising his voice, “Hey, we’re not going to waste our precious water on filthy German soil, are we?” --strong choruses of agreement came from Illyushin and Fyodor at this—“So I tell you what,” Pyotr said, drawing his pewter flask filled with vodka from his jacket, “A final toast!”

Each man drew his flask from his bag as they grinned broadly at each other. As the plane began its final screeching descent to the open arms of the grim reaper laughing maniacally from the factory below, the final five seconds of the bomb fuses began to tick, interminably, to their concordant demolition. Yet in that moment of absolution, each man somehow shared a perfect understanding, an unspoken knowledge, of each other’s intent, of their inevitable passing. Yes, they all knew, in their hearts, that this would be enough to demolish the factory, that they were going to be heroes in Russia, and yet they spoke naught of it, nothing of their posthumous glory. There was no panic at the impending call of death, no questions at the words to be spoken at this final stroke of the bell, only the light clink of tin and pewter, a deep, fiery rush of liquor, and a single, shared, unifying phrase.

“To the Motherland.”

Desideras Diabolum 12:57 PM!

***

Thursday, August 25, 2005

The Hall of Magic 01

The shining chandelier glimmered, slowly and deliberately, cascading it's luscious, warm light in graceful shimmers towards the smooth white marble below. Each tender, fragile crystal shone with a numinous grace, like the exultant tears of heaven suspended in the throes of brimming joy; each facet reflecting a different person, a myriad display of emotion, seamlessly flowing from the mountain peaks of euphoric, unbridled happiness, to the depths of the valleys of suicidal depression. As if in concordance, the euphonious harmonies in the background began their long, forlorn melodies, calling forth the watchers from their posts, to sail forth along the glassy waves of their dulcet melodies towards the ephemeral sun, and emerge from the darkening dawn on the other side of paradise.

The towering, burnished bronze columns shone imperceptibly, reflecting the gentle countenance of the chandelier. Around these monumental pillars of lionized strength, the grand opera hall reveled in its' luscious glory, burning the fires of achievement strong and indurate, searing and vaporizing the obloquys of inaction, bringing mirth to the pallor of the people below. Yes, empyreal marble arches, representing the cyclic nature of the rise and fall of men, pointed their benign incantations skyward, leveling their massive bulks in obstinance against the vast expanse of the mosaic ceiling. Soothing old lamps gave light to the corners and sides of this colosseum, casting their lamenting glances suffused with deep tinges of orange. Around the four walls were hung vast, opulent brocades, long chains of glittering treasure strung out for ostentatious display.

They boasted of long years of prosperity, of great ages that had come and, sadly, gone, before the twilight that was now descending, both outside as the sun imperceptibly closed its veil of light, and inside as the hearts of men yearned, oppressed and crushed by the foot of tyranny, for some true freedom from the shackles of deceit, from the manacles of empty promises so unceremoniously presented to them in the latest coup d'etat. Even as the magnificence of their heroes and leaders had been silently, vaingloriously led into the cold, hard rictus of the ground, they had placed their tattered coats-of-arms, their bloodstained suits of armour and their broken suits of chainmail in this grand vestibule, to honor their memory forever, while hidden away in this snug hearth of lore, a great hall hidden by the ancient runes of their forefathers.

Indeed, this great hall did but appear to only be a small farmhouse from the outside, and did no justice to the pomp and spendour kept ever-timeless by the unceasing watch of seven intricate seals - seven seals carved deep into each of the four walls, the ceiling, the floor, and on the door; each the apex of a old, exigent school of magic, now woebegone to the extent that even their own ancient magic was but an inscrutable, illegible scribbling. But that indeed, was the commination of centuries of ill discipline, and the past decade of repression of all things magical.

Yet even as the iron fist of tyranny ever shook the foundations of this magic, it simply went back to the oracle, this magnificent hall, and intermingled with the others. Such that it was, the air was often heavy with the magical spirits of those whose fires were long-extinguished, and the whispers of those never content under the cold, barren earth. Yet on occasion, perchance at the death of another didactic dictator, or the discovery of a voluble artifact, the air would be abuzz with the shimmers of rekindled souls, a tornado of gossamer shrouds running amok. There was no peace here - but men did not come here to find such peace, absent though it might have been from the raging, tempestuous world out there.

They came here for the euphoria, for the searching epiphanies that often accompanied small forays into the lore of the ancients. Each little nugget of information was as gold, each but a small iota of data, yet ever as important to the recipient - whether it told, as chance often had it, a struggling farmer how to better plough his farm, or whether, perhaps on a rarer occasion, it taught a battle-weary swordsman a new manner in which he could swing his blade. The world of magic in here abounded with the countless revelations of the infinite past, the unbounded encyclopaedias of each restless spirit, and the massive tomes of each house that, on rare occasion, were opened to the stubborn seekers of truth - though not always with pleasant results. For none knew what was hidden in those tomes, except those who had ever opened them before, those who had had some great and undeniable mission. But they could not tell, for they were forbidden to cross the river between life and death, denied return to the world above, once the powerful magic of the tomes had sealed their souls into their bodies forever. Now each vainglorious knight had already been laid, garlanded with luminous auroras of flowers, into the warm, peaty earth, their long historical legacies sealed on the pages of history, and their powerful, immutable knowledge sealed in their grand mausoleums. And each villanous filth, each corruptible spirit, had already carved their short lived infamies into the fortresses of the damned that now littered the country, cursed with unholy magic and the aura of cold, deathly frost, and they themselves had succumbed to the wiles of their own necromancy, their own conjurations, joining the dark ranks of hell's army of filth-spawn, riding their fiery ebony steeds in a relentless, yet silent, crusade against the angels above.

So now it was that none remained of the barons and lords that had ever dared to brave the pages of the ancient tomes. Lore had it, that they were hidden, and whoever did so wish to seek them had to pass the corridor of song, where each door emanated its own canorous melody, soft and somniferous, and he that wished to find the tome would immediately know which song was calling to him, above the soft clamor of the others. And each school of magic had a different song, as they said, but all of the songs were but deceptions for those who were insincere. Many had tried before, but only to find themselves sent back to the entrance of the hall - where the magic was kindly, and looked upon some noble spirit with a slight pity, or a slight longing, for the times where all men were of that same upright vein. But for the more unkind schools of magic, some had found themselves in great agony, or in momentous limbo - though to those within it, it lasted as forever - or even worse, some found themselves taking a premature trip across the dark waters of the Styx, to the grim, malevolent Cerberus at the gates of Hades.

And yet for the tomes, many events perchance might have never occured, to shape the present reality of this time. It was known, amongst small, closed cabals, that the current tyrannical rule was a byproduct of the old magic, of a rare occasion where the power of the tomes had fallen into the wrong hands, people whom it was never intended to be known to. Certainly, on every occasion, the results had been nothing short of disastrous. Perhaps that was why each seal was the most powerful reminder of the old runic lores, and each tome the only remaining source of magical wisdom. Indeed, each seal stood guard over their own tomes in their own special way.

And of the magic itself? Why, there was the magic of the elements sealed on the ceiling, the magic of time sealed over the doorway, the magic of the mind sealed on the east wall, of the body, on the west wall, of domination and destruction, on the north wall, of the hosts, on the south, and finally, the magic of life and death, carved on the floor. Each was the culmination of long years of unceasing trouble, of countless indelible marks in history, of massive battles and silent assassinations.

But yet now, even as the appointed time drew near, the magic of the place waned. The lights dimmed, then slowly extinguished, and the grand majesties of the hall slowly sublimed away, leaving only the poor, destitute farmhouse in it's place. As each person slowly drifted out the doors of the magical place, little did they know that a few of them, a chosen few, were to relive the histories of the past, to reopen the hallowed tomes again, and bring and unprecedented storm to the land.

But perhaps, we will leave that story for later.

Desideras Diabolum 7:13 PM!

***

Sunday, August 21, 2005

Sacrifice

[Note: The author apologizes beforehand for any irreverence or mentally disturbing images.]

Thunder boomed in the ominous sky overhead, their solemn hymn of fury coruscating from the ethereal darkness above. Flashes of lightning suffused the rolling clouds, bringing their divine yet vindictive illumination upon the swarming masses of sin below. Soon, heaven began it's daily cleansing ritual, its soothing ablution; the gentle collection of angels' soft, silent tears commingled with God's visceral fury, pelting the earth in a torrential storm that sent the rats scurrying down to their burrows, barricading their holes in anticipation of the looming flood. Yet as heaven opened its floodgates, they ran helter-skelter from it, a swarming mass of confused cockroaches running from the heavy crunch of approaching boots that signaled crushing doom. Yes, they ran, into their shelters and hiding-crevices, shivering as they peered out into the lineament of the now-solid grey curtain, evil defiant in the face of this empyreal benison, as if it were some odious waste pouring from the sky.

She glanced out of the window. Indeed, the evil in the hearts of men, she thought, struggled on under the duress of perpetual moralistic revelation, like a gangrenous, pus-filled pestiference that frothed and seeped yellow choler, dying and rotting yet perdurable in anger. She shuddered again, as she adjusted the candles around her again, not because of the thin, silky dressing gown she was wearing, that offered little protection against the raging cold outside, but because of the memories that shook her every time she fell asleep. The lurid nightmares, the perpetual saturnine thoughts, the indolent, gaping wounds that refused to close, the twisted, sadistic faces filled with perverted mirth, laughing, laughing, laughing...

That had been when four years ago. Even now, she had nightmares everyday, of the searing, scarring experience, sometimes sifting slowly in an interminable blur, sometimes coming back in a crystal-clear reflection, as though looking through the mirror of perdition.

Yes, she remembered, she had been fourteen then. An angelic, cheerful little cherub spreading her wings, preparing to fly into the vast, surpassing beyond. Still innocent to the vile filth, the moral turpidity that seethed through the minds of her peers, she was a good Christian girl, brought up morally in the statutes of the Lord. Indeed, she became a model that others aspired to be, popular, beautiful, brainy, hardworking, and kind. She remembered how, she would always be bubbly and enthusiastic, lifting the spirits of the dejected, encouraging the faltering around her. Yes, it had been tiring at times, but she felt then, that as long as she was upright and kind, that God would protect her. It said so in the bible, didn't it? So she continued in her ways, sometimes the pleading supplicant, sometimes the brave leader, always placing herself in a morally incorruptible situation.

Then that fateful day came - when she followed her friends to explore a deserted house; a classic, picturesque house standing on a small hillock, surveying the town where she lived below. It was an unofficial museum of sorts, of queer intricacies and burnished statuettes, of grand halls and devious little nooks and crannies. Creeping through the narrow corridors, marveling at the crystalline faces of the aquiline forms standing watch at the doors, gamboling through the verandahs littered with the yellow and gold of autumn, they felt a new uplifting sensation in their souls, like they could return here at anytime, this simulacrum floating above the ravages of time, and they could find peace and rest. Yet as the evening sky began to descend, her friends slowly drifted back to their faraway abodes, till there were only 4 others left with her, all guys all aged 18.

"Well, shall we go explore that last room we missed out just now? I heard there was some interesting old relic in It." piped her friend. At this, they all eased themselves off the floor of the back verandah, laughing as they strolled lightly back to the last unexplored room.

She opened it with a gasp. It was empty! Nearly, at least. In the middle of the room, there was a single queen-sized four-poster bed. Thin foam mattresses lined the walls. What was this? Certainly the old inhabitants of the house would have removed all these shabby, minimalist personal effects?

Then the click of the lock in the door sounded. She remembered this with a wrenching shudder.

She never had time to put a struggle - they were simply too fast. Before the shock of it had fully hit her, she was bound to the bed by thick ropes. Then she felt a sharp, burning pain, and heard the crack of a whip, just as a thin, red line split open on her porcelain skin. That was when she screamed.

She screamed as they tore her clothes and threw them in a heap, the terror in her mind rushing out in a vocal calumny, aborning in vituperation and rage, yet dying at it hit the soft, calming, caressing mattresses that lined the walls. And she screamed as they ravished her, whipped her, abused her, all the while laughing maniacally, the gleeful, childish toying warped into a perverse, demoniacal rage. The door opened, and six more of their friends entered, chuckling with disturbing, concomitant smiles. They gathered around, and each took their turn, worked into frenzy by the ever-weakening cries from her feeble body, wracked with long red lines that trickled out her now-tainted lifeblood.

She stopped screaming after an hour.

After that, everything was just a haze, a fog, as if an impermeable barrier had been glossed over her eyes. Everyone seemed to be just ghostly apparitions, shifty demons gliding just beyond the field of her vision. And every now and then, one of them would appear in front of her, a monstrous face that spat out absurd obloquies, never luculent, always fugacious. And the perpetual pain in her loins, always throbbing, always shaking, with a sickening warmth and fluidity, that welled up inside, leaving then returning, a nightmarish blur that rolled on like an unceasing horror movie, gripping and never faltering amidst her persistent struggles.

She stopped crying after the third hour. By now, all traces of feeling had evanesced from her icy-cold body. Perhaps this was just a terrible dream, a never-ending limbo, of men entering and leaving the room, The perpetual metallic click of the door opening and closing seemed as a clock, counting down the agonizing seconds to the end of this surreal dream, this garish tapestry.

Yet the end never seemed to come - or perhaps it was simply that as her tormentors slowed down, she was too traumatized to remember, and the end of the physical ceremony of her disgrace melded silently into the rippling, repulsive mental aftershocks. Did she sleep? She could not recall - only an empty gazing, at the bare whites of the ceiling, of the shimmering shadows cast by the wind slowly blowing the crystals of the overhanging chandelier. Yes, now she remembered, the chandelier. She had stared at each crystal, each chiseled lineament, each looking-glass, and saw herself, herself in different portraits, different times; yes, perhaps simply the madness of the unceasing trauma, but perhaps a spiritual enlightenment, a searing, searching epiphany, that reminded her of the better times, the better times, and still the better times; times where others had not taken her kindness for weakness, times when she was happy, times when she trusted those people close to her. And she realized that those times had passed.

She might have stayed up all night gazing at it, or she might have let her screams ebb into the ignorance of sleep... but they found her the next day, eyes wide open, with a blank, unnerving look, her pale face the epitome of oblivion, of the tabula rasa of insanity, the swirls and eddies of her dried tears still glistening in the light. Indeed, she made no acknowledgement when they untied her, and continued in her unceasing stare when they lifted her off the sordid cushion, stained forever with the malice of perdition.

It was hushed up of course - several of the principal culprits were from great, high-ranking families. Her family raged under the sweltering injustice, but were powerless - what were they, after all, but a simple middle-class family with few connections and even less clout in the high-swirling world of great corporations, of elaborate banquets and majestic fetes? So, just like that, the accused were acquitted, the sinners were forgiven, and irrefutable justice was crushed under the simpering facade of mercy and the frailties of circumstantial evidence. Not forgetting, of course, a small token of appreciation to the judge and jury involved, to the tune of a few hundred thousand apiece. But, of course, each family having a combined net worth of over 3 billion, they could easily afford it.

But all this while, she lay painfully oblivious to all this, with the same expression etched permanently into her face, exploring the nuances of the ceiling while the events re-ran in her head, a tragic serenade singing its saturnine melodies over and over again, alternately laughing and crying. She wasted away like this; her smooth porcelain skin turning sallow and weathered, while the scars of her whipping etched themselves over time, growing larger in mockery of her recovery.

Then one day she awoke from the stupor in the middle of the night, as if rising from an eternal slumber and finding the world in different hues, a warped paradigm of old days and fond memories. She picked up the newspaper and perused it. What day had it been? She could not remember. All she recalled was the headline that was splashed in bold across the cover...

"Accused rapists acquitted on insufficient evidence"

She dropped the newspaper, and the horrors of her dreams came rushing back at her like a torrential wind, knocking her off her feet and onto the cold, hard ground. Slowly getting up, she walked over to the reception counter, picked up a paper cutter, and walked silently back to her bed. Lying down, she slit her wrists and solemnly prayed for death.

The official report was that she was clinically dead for 5 minutes. Then again, who could tell how long 5 minutes was in the afterlife? She thought that she had seen the gates of heaven open wide for her, but only to be snatched away as she had reached its' doorstep. A short stint in the ICU had brought her back to life, and an inexplicable longing to return to her irrevocably shattered life had restored her to her original fiery state.

She shook herself back to the present, to realize she had been sobbing again. Life had never been the same again - oh yes, she had managed to scrape through school, even acing the final exams, but all her friends, if she had any real ones to begin, noted her unbridled distrust for everyone and everything, and the seething anger that burned in her heart, against God and against man, against the wiles of the world and its’ lascivious intricacies. Oh yes, she had often dreamed of revenge – that is when the horrors of the day took a sabbatical from the torment of her spirit – but that would only have brought her down to their level, would it not? She had kept telling herself that, all the while knowing she was only afraid of the repercussions of such an act, and perhaps, afraid of the demons of hell that would inevitably come for her after her unforgivable sins. So she had let her anger wax and wane, yet it had always accumulated, always frothed forth, and she had always had problems keeping it under control. But what were a few anger management issues? She was determined to succeed at life, to beat them at their own game; and it was this passion that had consumed her for the past 4 years of her life.

She glanced up at her bible on the shelf and scoffed. She had not touched it after her brush with death. It was thick with the dust of the ages, rank with the filth of the world, invariably unkempt and bug-ridden. And she stared at all the religious literature she had accumulated, all in varying states of disrepair, but more or less in the same condition as the book from which they drew their sacred origins. All untouched, all unused. Below it sat three shelves of what she liked to call “alternative religions”, though they were mostly composed of Wicca literature and other occult texts.

Staring around the house, she marveled at how her life had changed even within just the past few months. It had started, of course, with her coming home with a pentagram tattooed on her shoulder, with devilish platitudes such as “diabolum omnia vincit” and “amor e morte” carved into the ring of the pentagram. She had not argued, nor protested; she simply packed her bags and moved into her grandmother’s place, a quaint little villa in a forgotten secluded area of town. Here, at least, she could practice her summoning rituals and archaic mantras with peace and serenity, cut off from the sanctification of her parents and the ingrained holiness in her old house. Yes, in this little niche, she could gaze through her window at the cruel world outside, yet remain blissfully safe and protected within the embrace of her spiritual companions; she could glance at the numinous sun outside and yet swirl seamlessly within the mists of her séances, her calming, soothing aromas and meditations.

But time was short now – it was close to midnight already. Bringing out a ram’s head, she placed it at her feet, and then rolled up the carpet to reveal the cold stone floor beneath.

Carved deep into the floor, with the precise handiwork of many a skilled stonemason, was an intricate symbol; the combination of a ram’s head enveloped in a pentagram, with runic inscriptions encircling the entire five-point star. Dragons and harlots filled up the spaces between the circle and the five point star, representing the honoring of strength in infernal fire, the amassing of sinful wealth, as well as the lustful pleasures of the flesh, and the seduction in corrupting filth. In the middle was the enema – the symbol of Satan – pointing its’ unnerving, eyeless gaze up to the stars above, the fingers pointing to hell below, ever waiting, ever heralding the kingdom of its’ vain, beautiful and apocalyptic master.

The clock showed ten minutes to midnight. It was time to begin.

She threw off her dressing gown and drew back the curtains. Immediately, a flood of clear, bright moonlight, amplified by the special crystals in her window, rushed into the room, illuminating her milky-white body. Yes, four years of torment had irreparably shattered her spirit and torn her soul asunder, but gazing at her thin, aquiline nose, her high furrowed cheekbones, her crystalline, well-defined jaw, as well as her large, doleful eyes, filled with innumerable sadness that was at once haunting yet tearfully perfect, one could never tell the terrors that plagued her young, virginal mind. She unfurled her hair, and all at once, the silky ebony curtain fell, shimmering, swishing and rippling in the invisible wind. Now, even as she gazed at her naked body, she ran her smooth, lyrical fingers slowly and deliberately across the scar on her right thigh, a long and thin inscription on the Florentine marble of her skin, the first of three painful whip-scars that had remained stubborn and indurate since that unforgettable day. As if on cue, the second scar, a thick engraving on her porcelain shoulder hidden under the lines of the pentagram tattoo, began hurting, as if in solemn yet violent protest of the travesty of the trespassed. She clutched the scar, and let a single tear fall. It landed, as if by some invisible guiding hand, on the final scar, a curved, sickle-shaped trail that stretched from her right breast to the lower side of her left ribcage, and ran the length of the scar, a soothing salve that brought her out of her reverie.

But the ritual had to continue. Bringing out a small flask, she anointed the ram’s head with a little blood – her own blood, culled from her veins about a week ago. Then she kissed the head, and placed it before her as she knelt down and poured the rest of her own blood over her head. It was only a pint – not a great deal, indeed, but it ran in viscous rivulets, down the front of her face, down the white furrows of her back, down the smooth, rolling curves of her front, in between her legs, pooling below her lissome, nymph-like figure. Spreading out, the blood ran through the carvings on the floor, filling up the ram’s head with a devilish red, embellishing the hoards of the dragons and satiating the lusts of the harlots, and empowering the fist of the enema. Finally, she poured a flagon of ram’s blood into the five-pointed star, filling it to the brim, The blood ritual was complete; the silvery red of the menagerie of emblems testament to the outpouring of life, of sacrificial worship to the prince of the air. Then she began praying, even as the moonlight slowly, surely, yet inexplicably waned.

“Prince of the Air, hear my call!
Answer my prayer, aid my fall;
Unto your lusts I prostrate myself;
Into your hands, deliver my wealth.

Diabolum Omnia Vincit,
Diabolum Omnia Vincit.

Son of Perdition, I offer my blood
Your statutes to etch upon my heart;
I worship you and wallow in sin,
Forever my soul shall be unclean!<

Diabolum Omnia Vincit,
Diabolum Omnia Vincit!”

A shudder ran through her veins, and as if by some divine prophecy, the moonlight ceased instantly. She knew then, and arose. Pouring a clear fluid into the ring of the pentagram, she took a cup of absinthe and stepped back into the middle of the ring.

Then the bells of midnight began to sound. Suddenly, the clear fluid burst into flames, forming an immolating ring of fire. It was time for the unholy communion.

Clang.

“The dragon will sweep the stars out of heaven.”

Clang.

“He shall be loosed upon the earth.”

Clang.

“He will deceive the nations, Gog and Magog.”

Clang.

“They will meet the armies of God on the plains of Megiddo.”

Clang.

“They will fight in the final battle of Armageddon,”

Clang.

“They will cast God down into the abyss.”

Clang.

“And there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”<

Clang.

“Woe to you, O earth, for the dragon sends the beast.”<

Clang.

“The ram’s head represents your eternal dominion of the earth.”

Clang.

“The cup of absinthe, the new covenant in your kingdom of Babylon.”

Clang.

“In the name of the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet, Amen.”

Clang.

She drank the cup of Absinthe and kissed the Ram’s head. Immediately, she felt a choking, retching sensation, like something was boxing her in from all sides, and a ethereal, disembodied voice began speaking from around her, from the ring of fire, a terrible, booming, malignant voice, filled with the iniquities of eternal corruption, and tinged with the acrid, caustic smell of fiery brimstone.

“Do you call upon the name of Lucifer?” thundered the voice.

“Yes, I do,” She whispered in a small, feeble voice, suffocating under the immense pressure on her chest.

“Do you forsake your place in heaven eternally, to be my faithful servant?” rumbled the voice.

“Yes, my master.” She squeaked meekly.

“Who has eternal dominion, and what is his kingdom?”

“Satan, also called Lucifer, Son of Perdition, and his Kingdom is called Mystery, Babylon the Great, Mother of Prostitutes and of the Abominations of the Earth…”

“VERY WELL!” roared the voice.<

And immediately, the great, pressing weight was lifted, leaving her gasping for breath. Slowly, a figure began to materialize before her.

It was a tall, dark, man, immensely handsome, immensely muscular, with a perfectly chiseled face and body. His lithe, supple skin, radiating a searing, cleansing heat, was shimmering with an unearthly gleam. His rippling, naked body exuded the perpetuating vicissitudes of hard labor, a sculpture of unquenchable lionized strength. Yet his eyes concealed a deathly evil, a demoniacal obsession, and his thin smile revealed a sadistic power, a terrifying totality that made one weak from fear and terror. On his right arm, several bloodstained were visible, yet somehow not of the liquid quality of regular blood – as though they had been magically painted into his arm. Then he stepped forward, and spoke.

“Greetings. My name is Cain. Perhaps you would have heard of me some time ago, the progenitor of this entire cursed race. Ah, yes, you are staring at my arm, the stains of my murder, no less, still fresh as that day, over six thousand years ago. Indeed, I’ve seen my fair share of people come – no, they never go – through hell, and I must say you’ve been one of the first to not throw themselves up in death at the first indicator of recognition. Well. That’s good. My master has sent me to tell you that he wants the souls of all the members of those families he knows you hate so much – every last one, in exchange for a little place in his kingdom. Of course, he will duly protect you as you go about your duty – in little ways, of course.”

Struck dumb by awe and admiration, she could only nod silently as he turned to leave.

But suddenly, he turned back and spoke.

“He tells me I am to guard you. Very well.” Then softly, “I know your pain, your torment. Men have degenerated much over six thousand years, indeed. Perhaps, you need to feel perfection, before you can be whole again.” With that, he embraced her and kissed her firmly on the lips.

Immediately, a fiery heat came over her, a visceral, shimmering sensation that was at once painfully burning and pleasurably tingling. Then it became a calm, soothing warmth that enveloped her in the folds of comfort, letting her drift aimlessly on the by-currents of pleasure. She had never felt this good in her entire life. When the ethereal, somniferous warmth subsided, she found he had already gone.

The following week, a huge furor was created when a bomb exploded on a private jet while it was flying innocently over the vast expanses of the pacific, completely eliminating one of the richest corporate families in the country. This was followed by a neighborhood shooting that targeted a group of 22-year old guys, leaving their bloodied, unrecognizable bodies to fester in the daylight of justice. All this, of course, perpetrated by her, a teenager with an unshakeable thirst for vengeance and a silent fury against all who associated with her tormentors. With a little divine interference, nobody ever saw her infiltration, they never realized the engineer who inspected the plane was carrying an unusually large tool bag which he did not bring off the plane, and they never realized that the shooting was not carried out by one of the 22-year olds who supposedly committed suicide after he shuffled his fellow mates off the mortal coil.

And lastly, the last family always went to confession on Saturday evenings. It was a simple matter to find them.

Sitting now on the front pew of the deserted church, she went over the thoughts in her mind, all the while staring at the image of Mary, at the immaculate conceiver, at the father of the God she had fallen so far away from. A pang of guilt began to thaw in her cold, frosty heart. Why was all of this necessary? She thought that she had told herself not to stoop to their level that other time, she had vowed to keep her head up, and beat them at their own game, but where was she now? Just a common murderer, yet undiscovered by the law. She knew, she knew, that the inevitable finality was that she had to go down to die. Murderers, drug dealers, even, (she shuddered at the thought) rapists; was she no different from them? Had she come all this way, these four years of rebuilding her life, strength to strength, simply to waste it all now, or later even, in a mad blaze of ignominious glory? Fingering the gun inside her jacket, she began to cry; great, heaving sobs wracked her petite frame even as the weight of her sins began to weigh down on her. It was the place, the holiness, and the merciful countenance of Mary, which began to crack her indomitable spirit.

Suddenly, a strong, powerful hand embraced her, and a dulcet, mellifluous voice came from the distance, easing her out of her spiritual reverie.

“Don’t cry, my dear, don’t cry. I know why you feel terrible, because you’ve no one to turn to. I felt that way often in my long time below; after all, all my relatives were snugly holed up in heaven above, while I was raging in fire below.”

It was Cain.

“This is your last task, he promises, and I promise you, when you come to Hell, you can serve him as my wife.”

Glancing up at him from her tearing eyes, she saw no more malice, no more eviscerating terror, only a warm countenance that smiled gently and lovingly at her. So she decided.

Screwing on the silencer on her gun, she drew aside the confessional entrance, to the surprise and dismay of the priest within. Phut-phut-phut. As the priest slumped dead to a side, she stepped into the box, repositioned his body, and waited for her quarry to arrive. Soon, the clatter of footsteps resounded in the empty hall outside

The grille slid open. She composed her final thoughts.

“Forgive Me, father, for I have –“ Phut.

Worth Killing For...

She exited the box, and saw the entire family sitting on the front pew, with their customary bodyguards. Taking them by surprise, half of the 10-member family was dead even before the security had a chance to draw their weapons. As she riddled the other five with hot lead, she felt the dull roar of the security guards’ weapons, as a hailstorm of metal pinned her to the wall. She spat up a cough of blood as she crumpled to the floor.

Worth Dying For...

She closed her eyes, and the pain subsided. As she opened them again, she saw Cain standing over her, his virile, powerful arm extended in a inexpressibly loving gesture. Behind him, she saw the rising fires, frothing forth in devilish madness as the smoke of burning carcasses filled the air. A pleasant, putrid stench that winded its beautiful aroma around her, uplifting her spirits as she marveled at this kingdom of Babylon. Taking Cain’s hand, she arose and walked up the path of tormented souls, relishing the interminable screams of agony and wails of torture, to the foot of Lucifer’s Throne.

Worth Going to Hell For.

Desideras Diabolum 5:03 PM!

***

Friday, August 12, 2005

A Game of Chess

The soldier grits her teeth as she cowers in the dark trench. Overhead, the violent altercations of falling shells resound through the muddy earth, making their indelible marks on the cratered, chequered ground. She cringes, as she hears the brutal heartwrenching screams, first of the rushing shell, then of her mangled comrades, hissing their sibilant final words.

A pause in the torrential rain of shells, and she rushes out, into the blinding white of the eviscerating phosphorus. As she rushes through the charred bodies, narrowly missing the smouldering white death, she plunges headlong into another blackened crater, just as another thousand-pound bomb shatters the bloodshot skyline overhead.

She winces, as a piece of ineluctable shrapnel whistles past her arm, shredding a gash in her pearly white arm. Wiping back tears of pain, she steels her countenance as she tears her undershirt into a makeshift bandage, caring not for the thick grime layered on in, like a bubbling, seething pestiference. Gritting her teeth, she lowers her helmet and cocks her weapon, as her ears attune themselves to the hard crunch of her enemy approaching.

She times herself, then she pounces. With a torrential hail of steel, she cuts her opponent down in a fell swoop. Stepping towards his dark motionless form, she pushes it aside as she prones down behind a mangled vehicle, peering into the lurid gloom of the blazing, battered land.

No turning back now. The thought runs through her head endlessly, like a broken record belching out the same saturnine, wayworn tune. Yet in this tide of death, it became a small melody - she started as a Cardinal-class aircraft was shot down by the guns of their fortress - a small melody that became ever the more euphonious, a nostrum of hope for the cabal of the crushed.

So she plodded onward, as the ominous scenery flashed with the apparition of lightning and the ululations of thunder, a roaring diatribe that edged her closer and closer to that prized goal. With the throbbing of her quickly - numbing arm, and her racing pulse, she quickened her steps, soon reaching the enemy's base.

Just then, the rage of the battlement's guns paused, as if in recognition of a chink in the armor, a small little unsealed crack that would shake the foundation, the small spy that would reveal the entire camarilla. Then, with unmistakeable gravitas, the long, smoking cannons swiveled towards her, the violence of their commination unavoidable. She froze. Was this her final sojourn in a yet unfledged military career? But then she had been foolish to assume, to believe in the possibility of rising through the ranks, just like her father before her. That was a different time, a time of unsteady peace, but peace nonetheless, not this age suffused with the flummox of war and the eternal trails of bloodshed. So it was over. The flood of tears, held back by the dam of facetious strength, burst then. She had believed she was ready. But now, she was going to a ignominous, unheralded death, her only orison the roar of the cannons...

Suddenly, a truck sped out of nowhere, with the stutter of it's machine guns rattling the tower.

"Run!"

And immediately, she felt a new hope, a rekindled fire in the depths of her heart, and she ran as she never did before, just as a resonant cavalcade from the guns shattered the truck behind her. They were knights, she thought. To have sacrificed themselves so selflessly for me - why? She was only a foot soldier, a little pawn, and they had much larger offensive power than she alone could ever hope to muster...

She ran into the base, and stopped only when she knew she had eluded the sight of the gunners.

And then she saw why. Why the sacrifice was necessary.

Silhouetted in the dim floodlights, was an enormous tank, the width and breadth of an entire mansion. Of course! the Monarch-class war machines - they had talked about them in the briefing - they were fully automated and could be operated by a single person. Rushing toward the unguarded vehicle, she jumped in and keyed in the start code.

"Welcome to Monarch-class war machine, serial number a4, designation 'The Queen'." A droll, brassy voice sounded in the background. The Queen. An apt name indeed, for what was indeed, the ruler of the battlefield. She brought the enormous 18-inch cannon to bear on the battlement, and leveled it in a single shot. Then, swiveling around, she searched for her mission objective, her ultimate target.

There it was. The general's vehicle. One shot, and this battle would be over. As the gargantuan steely behemoth opened its rictus another time, she muttered a soft finality, a parting word, muffled by the demonic extolment of this unholy sermon.

"Checkmate."

Desideras Diabolum 3:22 PM!

***

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Exurgent

[Forenote: done with absolutely no reference to any vocabulary source.]

A silent, arboreal figure meditates quietly in the corner. Unseen, unnoticed, unheard.

As he sits and gazes, he ruminates on the seemingly insurmountable obstacle before him. A chain of difficulties ever burgeoning, an interminable stack lined with the trappings of mediocrity, the pins and cables of suffocation, and drenched in the narcoleptics of spirit-quenching.

He has come so far already. To have drank the somnolent liquor of procrastination, yet transmuted it to a rejuvenating elixir, to have gleaned the slippery entrails of society's abbatoir, scratched out the fallen grains of meritocratic harvest, and yet cook a sumptuous feast for the noveaux kings, and sup at their illustrious tables, all this he had done, and so much more. To account for them seriatim was akin to naming each grain of the innumerable sand.

So what was this? Just another indomitable feat, another branch in the railroad of the train of consequences. He would redouble his efforts, and blaze his nascent trail through this prickly hedgerow, this recalcitrant barrier.

But it was different this time.

Not a resounding paradigm shift, nor the ever-present corpuscles of hubris and overconfidence, not even the slight revamps along the way, the small yet veritable leak.

But simply an attrition, a slow wearing down, the invisible evaporation of the draughts of honeyed exuberance, the evanescence of the glowing embers of alacrity. Just like the obeisance of even the greatest concrete menageries to the ravages of entropy, so the final grains of sand in the hourglass have trickled away.

And as the tide ebbed out, the crowd waded out, smiling countenances in brash temerarious defiance against the cavalcade of the onrushing tsunami.

So with an almighty effort, he pulled at the ropes of grandeur, and reached for his ineluctable illusions one last time. Even as the final vestiges of his achievement quelled his cowardly indecision, his timid, puerile side, he felt free from the manacles of weakness. Then the inevitable came, the culmination of voluminous excession, of malevolent overestimation, the tragic denouement of another Claudius.

A silent, arboreal figure dies quietly in the corner. Unseen, unnoticed, unheard.

Desideras Diabolum 7:12 PM!

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